ive been on 6-8 small meals per day consisting of basically eye of round steak/ chicken/ tilapia, brown rice and broccoli for like the past three months. Even though I cheat all the time and drink a lot I'm still lookin the best I ever have. Take my word for it, not gonna pull a Tim and start posting shirtless pics for you guys to beat off too. For obese people I think it really is calories consumed vs calories burned, it's when you get down to the 12% body fat range that small changes in your diet and exercise plan can push you over that hump.

PS, i honestly dont care what studies say, I have lost more body fat eating a high number of small meals doing zero workouts, then I ever did puting in 90 mins of lifting and 60 mins in on a stair master while eating 3 squares a day. I am doing a study of one on me and sticking with what works.

You are correct, its constantly changing, like a line graph going positive and negative on a zero line. To me, the goal is to site just below the line as much as possible.

Right because you're managing your hunger all day long, it's a conscious effort to eat better and you aren't or are less propense to binge because you skipped a meal or something like that. And yea once you reach your goals there are tweaks and all that $#@! and you can micromanage it as much as you want. I'm just saying that for your average joe on a new years resolution kick who has a ways to go to <18% body fat, simply eating overall less (whether it be in 6-8 small frequent meals or 3 traditional meals or whatever), and/or burning more calories a day through exercise is gonna be a winning strategy

There are the ancillary advantages to eating small frequent meals I've acknowledged - better impulse and hunger control, better sleeping habits from not snacking late at night because a whole day of skipping meals/under eating is catching up to you, etc. Obviously we all have different goals and are at different stages, but like I said for your average guy who just wants to loose some weight (me) simply eating less and exercising when possible has been working pretty well.